I have been thinking all night and all day today about the independent testing that my brother had yesterday!
We finally got to out appointment date, it took two months to get an appointment!! I met the doctor on a recommendations from my son’s pediatrician. I have met with her previously to talk about my son and get her recommendations. She was very helpful and also extremely knowledgable. She told me she was the head of neuropsychology for 18 years and left to take a better position in Connecticut, she said it wasn’t more money but a chance to work with more children. I was very impressed with her.
Anyway, my brother had his appointment yesterday. He has been in special ed since age 3. He has been receiving Wilson for 3years and prior to that was on another reading program (which I know find out is terrible to dyslexics) and has been receiving speech and lang for the past 11 years.
I knew that his problems were not good and I was equally discouraged after the atty we hired telling me to send him off to the vocational school with a cruddy IEP that has no reading in it, and telling me to wait 3 or 4 months before having a meeting. I knew this couldn’t be right and sounded completely idiotic.
So after my brother completed his testing, the Dr. asked me to come in so she could give me a quick overview of what happened. The first thing she said was that he is a child who has obviously not received the proper educations. The words sort of hung in the air, it was a bizarre mix of valedation and sadness. She asked me some questions and gave me some insight into how things were working. She assured me that the vocational school was going to be the right place for him, we just needed to get him the right help.
I am sort of sad today. I feel guilty, I know the school has been doing a terrible job and even begging for their help, getting experts to review his testing, even going so far as to hire an atty didn’t help! He got the bottom of the barrell and the school says, “We did a fine job!, look how great he turned out!!” I sat in those meeting and kept telling them things were not right. I knew it, I didn’t care what anybody said, I have read enough, researched enough, and most importantly spent so much time with my brother, to know, he wasn’t this in the average range they kept saying he was!!
I don’t know, I guess even though this Dr. is going to help a lot, I still feel depressed. Even she said that she wondered how he faired in school becuase it must be more than incredibly difficult for him. He is fourteen and the school is forcing him into a position that he will have to play catchup big time!! I am annoyed and irriated that this has happened!! Now they are calling becuase they want to give him 10 hours of summer tutoring. I can’t even bring myself to call the lady back! I will do it myself!!!!!!!!!
Sorry everyone, I know on the inside it is good news but the more I thought about the more sad I got and once I started to cry, well, I couldn’t get back to the good parts!
Thanks for listening!
K.
Re: Had independent eval. yesterday!
I am sure it is some relief to have been validated, I know how it feels when finally someone sees what you see instead of making you feel like you are seeing things that aren’t there.
At the same time, I know you are also saddened by the fact that so much time has passed with your brother getting no real help for so long. It angers me to no end when I hear of these schools doing this to kids, they are our future and we all know there are many kids in the same boat as your brother that will get passed along. Then the politicians get on their soapbox about letting kids out of high school who can’t read and aren’t equipped to be responsible adults.
I have read the messages that went before, I won’t add to the fire, I honestly don’t know where the blame should be put, all I know is that there has to be some kind of connection between what goes on in schools and what the gov’t (and we parents!!) wants to happen(no kid left behind). There’s plenty of kids left behind. They are just in the cracks where no one can or will try to get to them.
I think if you are able to get some real remediation done for your brother, he can catch up, he still has some time, maybe forgo reg. high school, find an ld school or have him homeschooled(tutored) and take the g.e.d. Or find someplace that gives them a 13th year.
I myself worry about my son passing the state mandated tests and graduating, he does ok in class with accommodations but has only this year scored the majority of average on his terra nova. He was still below average in lang.arts and one point below in math. If it comes to it, I will do the above suggestions for him also.
I know there are others around here who can probably help more with specifics, I just wanted to let you know how much I admire all you are doing on his behalf. It has to take a lot out of you dealing with everything, you are doing a good job. I think we here can tell how much you care about your family and we are here to lend a virtual ear and shoulder. Regardless of what went on a few days ago. All my best.
Amy
Re: Had independent eval. yesterday!
How lucky he is to have you! I know that sick feeling too. I was in the same situation just over a year ago.
I hope they plan to give him 10 hours of tutoring per day! But they probably don’t have what he needs anyway. Did the evaluator suggest specific remediation programs for him?
Re: Had independent eval. yesterday!
We meet with the Doctor in a few weeks to go over her findings. I am pleased because she will meet with my brother first and go over everything. She said that she works for the child, first and foremost. Then she meets with my Mom and Dad and me.
She agreed that the way Wilson was delivered it would be inaffective. She also wants his entire school file, which is about 10 inches big, but she said the school can photo copy it, no big deal!!
I feel that she understands what is really going on. She seemed to pick up right away on what type of young man he is and what he needs. One suggestions she made was that he isn’t very social, meaning, he doesn’t have many friends his own age. After the testing, I mentioned that the vocational school has a pretty good baseball team and his reply was “No, I would probably just mess it up anyway!” The saddest part is how you can see in his face that he honestly thinks he will not do well, even though he is really great at sports!!
She didn’t really say anything Wilson related other than if it is delivered in a setting other than one on one it is fairly inaffective. In my brothers case, considering how far behind he is, it probably didn’t help. I am trying to get him to do the advanced code with me in the reading reflex book. It seems that Wilson wants to teach a lot of rules and he doesn’t need that. He also told me that it is really boring and he doesn’t really understand it. I try to tell him that I know he knows how to read, I just want to help him read better. I said if we work on reading well, he will start finding he will need less special ed help in the reading dept and that his new school will be much easier.
Anyhow, she really didn’t give any recommendations, only that we should sign his IEP pending her report, so that is a good sign. I am just glad that we found someone who really understands what is going on!! Someone who realizes that my brother slipped through the infamous “crack”!
Thanks everyone for listening and responding, it helps when you know other people understand!!
K.
K.,
I know that bittersweet feeling. And I think its only natural to mourn during this time. It is time lost, time you can’t get back and time that no one in the position to help your brother bothered to listen to what you were really saying on his behalf. I’m sorry you had to go through that, I’m sorry he had to go through that.
Now you have someone who knows what you are trying to get done and agrees with what you knew all along. Hopefully it will be uphill from here on out.
I’m glad to hear that you had a good experience with this doctor. I think that if you feel she is the right one, I’d let her take the lead and get things rolling for him.
Cheer up soon, this is a step in the right direction after years of walking the dark path, right????!!!!
P.S. Please tell more about what you found out about Wilson and dyslexics.